Engineering Annotations: A Generic Framework For Gluing Design Artefacts in Models of Interactive Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a systematic, model-based framework for managing and coordinating annotations across multiple heterogeneous artefacts in interactive system design, enhancing information consistency and traceability.

Contribution

It proposes a generic annotation model based on the W3C Web Annotation Data Model and demonstrates its feasibility through a tool suite applied to interactive system design.

Findings

Effective coordination of annotations across artefacts improves design traceability.

The approach supports multiple design iterations with consistent annotations.

The tool suite demonstrates practical applicability in real-world projects.

Abstract

Along the design process of interactive system many intermediate artefacts (such as user interface prototypes, task models describing user work and activities, dialog models specifying system behavior, interaction models describing user interactions {\ldots}) are created, tested, revised and improved until the development team produces a validated version of the full-fledged system. Indeed, to build interactive systems there is a need to use multiple artefacts/models (as they provide a complementary view). However, relevant information for describing the design solution and/or supporting design decisions (such as rational about the design, decisions made, recommendations, etc.) is not explicitly capturable in the models/artefacts, hence the need for annotations. Multi-artefacts approaches usually argue that a given information should only be present in one artefact to avoid duplication and increase maintainability of the artefacts. Nonetheless, annotations created on one artefact are usually relevant to other artefacts/models. So that, there is a need for tools and techniques to coordinate annotations across artefacts/models which is the contribution of the present work. In this paper, we propose a model-based approach that was conceived to handle annotations in a systematic way along the development process of interactive systems. As part of the solution, we propose an annotation model built upon the W3C's Web Annotation Data Model. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by means of a tool suite featuring a plugin, which has been deployed and tested over the multi-artefacts. The overall approach is illustrated on the design of an interactive cockpit application performing two design iterations. The contribution brings two main benefits for interactive systems engineering: i) it presents a generic pattern for integrating information in multiple usually heterogenous artefacts throughout the design process of interactive systems; and ii) it highlights the need for tools helping to rationalize and to document the various artefacts and the related decisions made during interactive systems design. CCS CONCEPTS $\bullet$ Human-centered computing $\bullet$ Human computer interaction (HCI)